


Please Understand (I Am Not Who I Was)

by TheGaySmurf



Series: Life Is the Moments We Make (The Seconds We Take) [15]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Introspection, Waverly/Champ, and everything she went through to get there, and how it relates to Waverly's personal character arc through the first season, at Waverly's transition from Champ to Nicole, because it is an examination of their relationship, but i didn't want to include that in the main ship tag, including how she found herself along the way, this could technically also be tagged, this is basically an in-depth look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 20:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19730842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGaySmurf/pseuds/TheGaySmurf
Summary: “You know…” Champ says, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face as his arms tighten around her waist and he pulls her in closer against his body.  “You’ll always be the keeper ofmyboner.”Waverly stiffens in his arms, her hand falling away from the box that holds her newest treasure.  All she wants to focus on is the skull her uncle had left her – herlegacy– but Champ’s one-track mind obviously has other ideas right now.How did I get here?she thinks to herself with a weary sigh as she feels his hot breath against her neck.





	Please Understand (I Am Not Who I Was)

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title and scene header lyrics: "Back to Me" - 3 Doors Down
> 
> Please give the song a listen if you can, as it's an integral part of the fic and my inspiration for writing it. From the very first time I heard it, I've always said that it reminded me of Waverly's story in relation to how she figures out that Champ isn't the right one for her and that she deserves better. 
> 
> As Nicole says in 1x07: "Waverly has spent her whole life tailoring who she is to the people she's with. She's only now just starting to figure out what she really wants." And this fic is my in-depth examination of that journey she takes. 
> 
> Thank you to Fly (@flyingfanatic) for all of your unwavering support.
> 
> And thank you to Bee (@belikebumblebee) for betaing the beta and convincing me that it was worth putting out there. 
> 
> I don't write from Waverly's PoV nearly as often, but I'm trying to get better at it, so I guess we'll find out together how it turned out.

“You know…” Champ says, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face as his arms tighten around her waist and he pulls her in closer against his body. “You’ll always be the keeper of _my_ boner.”

Waverly stiffens in his arms, her hand falling away from the box that holds her newest treasure. All she wants to focus on is the skull her uncle had left her – her _legacy_ – but Champ’s one-track mind obviously has other ideas right now.

 _How did I get here?_ she thinks to herself with a weary sigh as she feels his hot breath against her neck.

* * *

**_I have poured out my heart_ **

**_laid it right here for you_ **

Wynonna graduated two years ago – if you can call it that; she _barely_ scraped by, and Waverly still isn’t convinced that she didn’t somehow manage to blackmail the principal into letting her pass just so he could get rid of her – but the entire school still buzzes every time she finds herself on the court docket again, just like it did when she was still here, missing months at a time to repeated stints in juvie. 

Waverly tries not to let it get to her. She already has enough on her plate as a freshman taking AP language and history classes that are normally reserved for upperclassmen. But the Earp name is a curse in and of itself, and “little sister of that crazy Earp bitch” is its very own special brand of scarlet letter.

It used to be her and Chrissy Nedley against the world, but now that they’re in high school, they’ve somehow caught the interest of people like Stephanie Jones and her posse of lemmings, and things just aren’t quite the same between them as they used to be. Waverly knows the Mean Girls only pay her any attention to satisfy some sort morbid curiosity, and while they may parade her around the halls like their newest “project,” every barbed word and backhanded comment and hushed whisper when she’s pretending to read drapes around her neck, until her albatross is nearly dragging the ground.

But one day, everything changes. And Waverly doesn’t understand why.

Why this older boy with perfect hair and perfect teeth and perfect popularity is leaning against her locker, asking if he can walk her to class. Why this junior that ropes calves and wins rodeo buckles on the weekends is paying a moment’s notice to a stigmatized freshman. Why everyone is staring at them, but he doesn’t seem to care, only interested in her answer as he continues to flash those pearly whites at her.

Waverly has been staggering under the legacy that her sister left behind for her, but Champ’s shoulders are broad and strong and look like they could bear a sizeable burden with ease, so she shyly nods at him and blushes as he grins and kisses her on the cheek. When he lifts her stack of books out of her hands, the weight around her neck is lifted, too, and Waverly feels lightheaded with how rapidly things suddenly change around her.

The weight of Champ’s arm is still heavy around her shoulders, but it’s different than the old weight; warmer and softer and less lonely. Everyone still watches her every move, but now it’s because the moves are part of her cheerleading dance routines, and the stares are laced with awe and interest and hints of jealousy rather than the contempt they once held.

Everyone notices her now, and not in the uncomfortable way that she used to shrink away from. She’s popular at school and people in town greet her on the street, and even though Champ has already graduated by the time she’s an upperclassman, his influence still wraps around her like protective armor, and she even manages to win prom queen, much to the dismay of Stephanie Jones.

Champ has done wonders for her confidence and her self-worth, and she clings to that feeling. She opens herself up to him and tells herself that this is what love feels like and she stakes her heart on it because a voice in the back of her head whispers that it’s not like anyone else would ever want to be with an Earp anyway. He’s done so much for her, and she’d do anything for him in return. Even skip her own graduation and valedictorian speech to watch him play video games because that’s what he asked her to do, and she owes him for loving her… right?

* * *

**_and I’ve tried so hard_ **

**_that’s the best that I can do_ **

Things are never easy for long. At least not in her family.

Wynonna takes off for good after Waverly’s graduation, and she’s left with a hole in her life that she doesn’t even begin to know how to fill.

Still, she does the best that she can. She’s become the town sweetheart and perfected the _smile and wave,_ and when they hold a contest at the annual chili cook-off, she wins ‘Nicest Person in Purgatory’ and hangs the sash on the wall of her new apartment above Shorty’s. She knows Gus and Curtis only agreed to it because Shorty is looking out for her, but she doesn’t really mind, and it’s definitely worth it to have a space she can call her own, even if Champ is only excited about it because it means they don’t have to sneak around anymore to get some “alone time.”

When Waverly isn’t busy taking online courses in dead languages to help with her secret research project that she keeps hidden behind the curtain in her room, she spends her time charming the locals from behind the bar downstairs and cheering for her boyfriend every time the rodeo comes to town. 

Champ’s been on the circuit for almost three years now since he finished high school, and he’s starting to make a name for himself. Maybe a little too much of one, if all of the buckle bunnies following him around now are any indication, but Waverly tries not to think about that. She’s proud of him and she’s always there to greet him in the winner’s circle after the roping events, regardless of the fact that he smells like manure and someone else’s perfume. 

After another year of competing, he’s finally graduated from roping to riding, despite Waverly’s concerns, because _that’s where the big sponsorships are, babe_. He’s already got the _Hardy Rodeo_ logo emblazoned on his gear, but she can’t really blame him for wanting to branch out on his own and earn the rep from other national companies instead of just his family’s ranch. It’s not like she doesn’t know a little something about having your family name be the only thing you’re known for.

The night he gets thrown from a particularly stubborn bull in Calgary and the entire crowd winces at the sickening crunch that echoes through the stadium when he lands on his knee, Waverly knows things will never be quite the same again. He’s laid up for months after the injury, but the fact that his promising rodeo career has been prematurely cut short affects him far worse than the pain in his knee does.

Waverly is by his side through the entire ordeal, but there are times when she’s convinced he’s never going to leave his barstool again. He’s only twenty-two years old, and she’s already wondering if they’ll have to put a _James “Champ” Hardy_ plaque on the back of his stool right next to the one they have for Curtis. She’s trying so hard to pull him out of his funk like he once did for her, but nothing seems to be working. She even talks him into taking the preliminary law enforcement exam, which cheers him up for a couple of weeks, but it ends up backfiring when the results eventually come in and he finds out he failed.

The turning point finally comes when she goes to her uncle and asks him to take a chance on Champ. Gus and Curtis have always liked him well enough, grateful for the way that he helped pull Waverly out of her shell when they were afraid they might lose her the same way they lost Wynonna, but she’s always wondered if they secretly felt like she could do better. She’s not really sure how she possibly could – not in this small town with such limited dating options and no one else brave enough to weather the Earp name – but she catches a knowing look in Gus and Curtis’s eyes sometimes that she still hasn’t been able to decipher yet.

Curtis hires Champ to work security with him at some of the bigger ranches in the county, and he pays him a little extra to help him with his treasure hunts on their days off and he seems to return to his old self for the most part. Waverly feels like she’s done the best that she can to help him, including constant reassurance now that he’s decided to keep taking – and failing – Nedley’s deputy exam.

* * *

**_tears forget_ **

**_that’s more than I can do_ **

Champ spoils her when he’s around, showing her off to his buddies and staking his claim when she’s behind the bar at Shorty’s, but his wandering eye is getting more and more obvious. He flirts with girls at the pool table and he forgets about dates and he acts like the personal welcoming wagon every time fresh blood finds its way into the bar.

Still, when they’re alone, he brings her flowers and whispers sweet things in her ear, and Waverly has to admit that it’s nice to feel like the center of his world sometimes, even if it’s only for a little while. So she gives him a drawer in her dresser and she gives him a key to the door and she gives him a spot in her bed, and for all intents and purposes, they’re Purgatory’s Sweetest Couple that everyone is jealous of.

She hears Gus and Curtis and Shorty and even Nedley constantly dropping not-so-subtle hints to Champ about finally getting that ring he owes her, and it makes her heart race in her chest. But she can’t tell if it’s from excitement or existential dread, and that is _far_ too complicated to try and unravel, so she ignores it altogether and focuses instead on how cute everyone tells them they look together.

Sometimes they take off in her Jeep for the day and go mudding or saddle up a couple of the horses his parents own and ride the trails, and occasionally, she’s able to talk him into a trip to the city for dinner and a movie. Or if she’s _really_ lucky, she might even be able to drag him out to go dancing every once in a while.

But the truth of the matter is that the majority of their time together is spent in Waverly’s bed. Champ comes over and showers after working with Curtis all day and she makes him dinner and then he scoops her up and hauls her off for some “quality time.” It’s not that she minds too much – she’s learned how to make it work for her, and they have a good time; it’s fun and easy, and that’s hard to come by in her life, so she might as well take it where she can get it – it’s just that she can’t help but wonder when he’s snoring next to her at night if there’s supposed to be more to love than only this.

She starts to wonder that more and more often as he cancels their plans at the last minute – or forgets about them altogether – with increased frequency. It starts smaller at first, always made up for with flowers and apologies and that patented boyish grin, but it eventually reaches the point that she’s not sure which is worse: waking up to an empty bed, or having him there next to her still smelling like cigarette smoke and minty lip gloss and trashy drug store perfume.

She doesn’t let him see her cry. All those years of perfecting the _smile and wave_ have made it easy for her to hide her emotions behind a porcelain mask. But the night that she blows out the candles on her table over the special dinner that has long-since grown cold and crawls into a cold, lonely bed all alone nearly breaks Waverly. 

It’s her twenty-first birthday, after all, and even the strongest masks show their cracks sometimes.

* * *

**_‘cause they don’t wash away_ **

**_all the things that we’ve been through_ **

Waverly wakes up in the morning with an overwhelming feeling of indescribable loss. 

It’s disorienting, to say the least, because this isn’t the first time Champ has blown off their plans to do god knows what – or _who_ – and it isn’t the first time she’s cried herself to sleep because of it. Hell, it’s not even the first time someone has forgotten her birthday.

She drags herself out of bed and tries to settle her restlessness by cleaning up the mess left in the kitchen from last night. It serves to keep her hands busy, but the strange emptiness still clings to her every thought. She figures she’ll head downstairs for a cup of coffee, and maybe if she’s lucky, she can sweet-talk Paulie into making her some breakfast. That might help her snap out of it.

It doesn’t take long to finish straightening up before heading out, but then her mind snags on a new thought when she catches sight of her bed as she’s closing the door: _I wonder if Champ has ever snuck any girls from the bar up here when I’m not home…_

She freezes in her tracks, and all thoughts of breakfast fly out the window as her stomach turns at the image that’s now permanently etched in her mind.

_Fudgenuggets._

That was not what she meant when she wanted to find a distraction from this weird feeling she can’t shake. 

This is worse than any hangover she’s ever felt. She definitely needs some coffee. Like, an entire pot of it. STAT.

Waverly doesn’t even make it to the bottom of the stairs before her entire world is turned upside-down.

Gus is already there, sobbing into Shorty’s shoulder. Waverly _instantly_ understands why she woke up feeling like she’d lost something she’ll never be able to get back. Her knees start to buckle, and she looks around for Champ, wishing she could fall into his arms for support the same way Gus has fallen into the arms of her best friend. But he’s not there, and she’s alone as she slides down the wall into a crumpled heap on the steps and cries until she has nothing left.

She spends the next few days at the McCready ranch. She tries to call Champ several times, but he seems to be avoiding her, acting dodgy and distant on the phone, and too busy to come over and help with any of the preparations for the upcoming service. So she sleeps in her old bed, looking at her old pictures on the wall – remnants of her childhood that she left behind when she moved into her own apartment – listening to Gus crying in her room, and she wishes Champ were there to hold her, his arms keeping the ghosts at bay for even one night.

Despite everything that’s going on, Waverly doesn’t forget to text Wynonna at midnight on her birthday. She’s not even sure if the number she has for her is still in service, but it’s the best she can do, and she wonders where her sister might be right at this very moment. The last postcard had come from Greece, but that was almost a year ago, and there had been no writing on it besides her address, so she has no idea if Wynonna was staying there or just passing through.

Early the next morning, she finds out that Champ isn’t even going to come to the memorial service, and it’s more than she can take. This man that took him under his wing, that gave him a job when he was trying to get back on his feet, that practically treated him like a son, and all he has to say for himself is _aww… c’mon, babe… you know I hate funerals…_ He’s bailing on her, again, right when she needs him the most.

She thought she would be able to make it through seeing everyone today, but now that she’ll have to face them alone, without any kind of support from the supposed love of her life, she knows she won’t be able to handle it without completely breaking down. Gus gives her a sad smile, but she seems to understand that Waverly can’t be here right now, so when she tells her that she needs to be alone for a while, Gus hugs her tightly and kisses her on the cheek and tells her to stop by later tonight for some food if she’s feeling up to it.

Her first thought is that she could work a shift at Shorty’s this morning. It should be pretty quiet there, given that most of the town will be out at the ranch for the service, and Shorty could probably use the company. She even goes so far as to get dressed in her uniform – if you can call a low-cut crop top and a denim miniskirt a uniform – before she changes her mind at the last second and decides to go for a drive instead.

The backroads are deserted today, and Waverly takes a couple of hours to clear her head without the pressure of keeping up appearances for anyone else. There’s an old Fleetwood Mac tape in the glovebox that Curtis used to sing along to when Gus wasn’t around, and Waverly listens to the entire thing twice through before returning to town, feeling like she has a slightly better grip on herself than she did before.

It lasts until she pulls up outside Shorty’s and sees Champ’s shiny black truck parked out front. She can’t believe the nerve – leaving her to fend for herself, today of all days, while he drinks beer and plays pool with a couple of bikers. She storms into the bar ready to give him a piece of her mind, but he’s nowhere to be seen. She demands, in no uncertain terms, to know where he is, and Shorty’s face pales as he reluctantly points to the stairs that lead up to her apartment.

The Earps are known for two things: their liquor and their tempers. Waverly never mixes the two like her daddy always did, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of fully embodying either aspect on its own. She grabs her sawed-off Browning 12-gauge shotgun that she keeps behind the counter for when she’s closing up by herself, and before Shorty can stop her, she’s already kicking down the door to her own room.

She finally has an answer to the question that’s been boring a hole through her skull ever since it burrowed in four days ago, and she gets it in the worst way possible: Champ Hardy is in _her bed_ with some barfly skank on top of him.

Her rage boils over and the room fills with feathers and a voice in the back of her head tells her she’s going to have to pay for the two holes she just put in her walls, but all of that fades away when realizes she’s looking at her sister for the first time in three years.

Champ scampers out of the room like the shit-ticket he is, and Waverly lets him go for the moment because there are more important things going on right now. He thinks he’s off the hook, and the fact that Wynonna tells her that she was only trying to get information out of him quickly earns her Waverly’s forgiveness, but that doesn’t do anything to mitigate the fact that he brought her up here in the first place because he thought he was going to get lucky while Waverly was supposed to be with her aunt.

And none of this has anything to do with the way he abandoned her in her hour of need – in her _four days_ of need – especially right after forgetting her birthday again.

It’s getting harder and harder for her to let these things go.

* * *

**_I’ve put behind me_ **

**_my share of the shame_ **

Now that Wynonna is home, things pick right back up where they left off before. Which is to say that Waverly’s world has become an unpredictable shitstorm. But at least they’re going through it together this time, and that’s a vast improvement over the past.

An entirely different kind of whirlwind blows through her life less than a week later, in the form of a tall, confident redhead leaning against the door to Shorty’s like she belongs there.

Nicole. Her name is Nicole Haught. _Of course_ it is.

Waverly gets swept up in the moment briefly, but then something hits her like a punch to the gut: _Is this kind of behavior the same thing I get mad at Champ for?_ Surely it can’t be. It’s not like she’s flirting with some other guy. She’s just talking to another woman. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

Still, she’s quick to inform Officer Haught that she’s in a relationship, no matter how badly she stumbles over relaying this important bit of information. Nicole seems almost… disappointed? But she takes it with a smile and leaves her card and tips her hat, and Waverly can’t for the life of her understand why her cheeks are so red when she watches the new deputy saunter back out of the bar with a swagger that she’s never seen before.

She spends an enthusiastic evening with Champ that night, and later, when he’s passed out next to her, a small part of her wonders if she was trying to convince herself of something.

A few days later, Nicole leaves her a voicemail, and Waverly’s heart races as she punches the number to listen to it, but it instantly drops into her stomach the second she hears why Nicole had called. Her sister and her boyfriend have managed to get themselves into a hostage situation, and if Waverly’s instincts are correct, she’s pretty sure Revenants are involved.

She’s a nervous wreck until they’re home safe, but she’s immediately flooded with guilt as soon as she sees Champ when they return. The entire time they were gone, she was consumed with worry for Wynonna – and for some reason that she doesn’t have time to unpack, also Officer Haught; she had completely forgotten to be worried about Champ.

But the guilt is soon overshadowed by grief when she learns of Shorty’s fate, and just like that, she’s reliving the nightmare of losing Uncle Curtis all over again. At least Champ sticks around instead of leaving her to handle it all on her own again.

He may be there _with_ her this time, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s not there _for_ her. 

Champ continues to make the entire thing about himself to anyone and everyone who will listen – including Waverly, despite her devastation over losing another person that she’d considered family – and she finds that she’s feeling less and less guilty and shameful over her priorities during the incident.

* * *

**_we could call villains_ **

**_but it’s all in vain_ **

Shorty was well-liked in Purgatory, a pillar of the community and everyone’s friend, and nearly the entire town turns up for his wake. 

Gus is a wreck, but thankfully Nedley is there to comfort her. He may be one of the only other people in this town that understands what she’s going through right now, having also just lost his two best friends in the span of a couple of weeks.

Wynonna is present, much to Waverly’s surprise, but she’s huddled in the corner with Dolls having a heated conversation disguised as harsh whispers. And judging by the alarming rate at which her whiskey bottle is draining, she wouldn’t be much help to anyone right now, anyway.

And her boyfriend is here this time, which is an improvement over the situation with Curtis, but rather than offering her any kind of support, he’s migrating from group to group, telling his tale of tragic heroics and feasting on the sympathy everyone feels for the “poor boy that tried to save Shorty, but there just wasn’t anything he could do.”

Waverly is surrounded by people, but she couldn’t feel more alone if she tried.

Until a quiet voice calls out her name, pulling her from her solitude. 

Officer Haught – _Nicole_ – stands before her, with soft eyes, full of concern. There’s a crowd around them, but the way Nicole looks at her, really _sees_ her, makes Waverly feel like they’re the only two people in the room.

She’s not good at being vulnerable. She’s fought her entire life to keep from being so. But when Nicole reaches out and takes her hands, offering warmth and support and shelter, Waverly can’t help but let the mask slip a little. She feels… _safe_ here with Nicole. It’s a foreign concept, but for some reason, she allows herself to lean into it for the briefest of moments, until Champ suddenly appears and begins staking his claim and she’s forced to put her walls back up again.

Nicole starts to back away, never one to intrude where she’s not wanted. But Waverly’s not ready for her to leave yet, so she reaches out and mumbles the first thing she can think of – anything to get her to stay for just a few seconds longer.

Champ instantly makes it known that he doesn’t like her as soon as she’s finally gone, complaining that she rubs him the wrong way, and a part of Waverly that’s growing larger by the day thinks it’s pretty sure it knows why. She wonders if she’s supposed to be feeling guilty about that, because if she’s being completely honest with herself, guilt is definitely not what she’s feeling right now.

If anything, the words _frustrated_ and _disappointed_ come to mind, especially since she tries to let herself be vulnerable with Champ the same way she just was with Nicole, only to have him immediately turn it back around to being all about himself, just like before. He starts smothering her with sloppy kisses again, and she eventually has to excuse herself, mumbling something about needing to go and find Wynonna, because she feels like she can’t _breathe_ under his “affections.”

She can tell that he wants to make Officer Haught out to be the villain here. To lay all of the blame on her for the shift in their dynamic. But that’s not fair to Nicole, and to be honest, it’s not fair to the two of them, either. Waverly knows she could just as easily try to blame the other women that Champ runs around with, too. But what good would that do? 

His infidelity isn’t the _cause_ of their problems, it’s the _result_ of them. And these things have been going on for far longer than Nicole Haught has been in Purgatory. 

Waverly heads over to find Wynonna by the pool table, and silently wonders if it’s time to take a long, hard look at her relationship and what she really wants.

* * *

**_all my life I’ve waited, hoping_ **

**_wanting you to see me the way that I am_ **

Winter has settled across Purgatory, blanketing the fields in the kind of snow that mutes the world and everything in it, but the weather isn’t the only thing that’s gotten colder.

Ever since the wake, Waverly has been exceptionally busy. Between helping Gus run Shorty’s and going on Revenant stakeouts with Wynonna and hitting the books extra hard in the Black Badge office to impress Marshal Dolls, she hasn’t exactly had a lot of time to spare on things like _fun_ these days. Which is fine with her, to be honest, because she had meant what she told herself about needing some time and space to figure some things out.

It’s not that she hasn’t seen Champ at all since then. He still spends plenty of time at Shorty’s, trying to talk her into taking a break and sneaking upstairs with him. But the fact that she and Gus are shorthanded and constantly swamped allows her to brush him off without really needing to lie about it. Not to mention that living at the homestead with Wynonna now means that technically the room upstairs isn’t hers anymore. It’s flimsy at best, considering she’s still using it to store a lot of her things, but it’s a legitimate excuse nonetheless, and the fact that Waverly keeps using it ought to tell her something.

Needless to say, she and Champ haven’t slept together since the night after Shorty’s service. 

It’s not for lack of trying, though. He’s constantly texting her and asking her to meet up with him. She tries not to think about the words “booty call,” because that sounds so trashy, and Waverly Earp is anything but trashy. He’s even taken to sending her pictures to “get her in the mood.” Receiving one while she’s trying to have dinner with her sister at the diner is about as mortifying as it gets, but as always with Wynonna, it’s easy enough to play off as a sex joke and move on to other things.

When Gus tells Waverly one night while they’re working that the executor of Curtis’s will is finished with all of the legal proceedings and that he’s left several things to her from his storage shed out behind their barn, Champ overhears and volunteers to help her haul all of it out to the homestead for her to go through. 

This is the first time he’s offered to spend time with her that didn’t involve trying to get laid, and that thought makes Waverly soften a bit. The smile she gives him is genuine when she accepts his offer with a kiss on the cheek, and they make plans for him to pick her up in the morning.

It’s difficult, being there, surrounded by all of Curtis’s things. His junk and collections and treasures. There’s a tightness in Waverly’s chest that makes it hard to breathe, and she’s grateful that she’s not here doing this alone. Champ seems to know his way around the shed, moving through it with ease, and she wonders just exactly how much time they spent out here together. She watches him fondly as he pushes things around, making room for him to load up the Harley-Davidson 1200 Stage One Screamin’ Eagle, and she helps pack the other things in around it under the tarp.

The drive out to the homestead is mostly quiet. Champ keeps rambling about the badass motorcycle, but Waverly is lost in her thoughts and just smiles and nods at him until he eventually gives up. He reaches across the bench seat of his truck and grabs her hand, but instead of feeling like a comfortable routine, she’s surprised to find that all she can focus on is the fact that his hand is clammy and rough instead of soft and warm like Nicole’s was that day in Shorty’s. _That_ confuses her more than she wants to think about right now, so she shakes herself out of her own head and squeezes his hand and rests her forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the barren fields go by for the rest of the ride.

Champ hops up in the back of the truck as soon as they pull up in front of the homestead, and starts helping her unload all of the boxes and crates – and even the metal drum that she has no idea what it could possibly contain – without being asked, and she starts to wonder if maybe this space they’ve taken has given him time to think about things, too. Maybe he wants to be more present and supportive. Maybe he’s more interested in the things that she gets excited about. Histories and mysteries and the rush of solving something that has stumped everyone else for centuries.

But any illusion of that shatters just moments later. The disbelief that someone can be both pretty _and_ smart is bad enough, but the thing that really sets her on edge is the fact that she finds a riddle that Curtis left specifically for her, and Champ immediately begins making fun of it, reciting a dirty limerick and thrusting his hips up into her back despite the fact that she’s trying to shove his arms away from around her waist and shoulders.

She’s never been so grateful for one of Wynonna’s interruptions in her life.

The rest of the unloading is slow-going, but they eventually get everything stashed in the barn. Tension hangs thick in the air now, though, like the clouds of white crystals their breaths leave behind, thanks to Champ’s repeated hints and advances, and Waverly’s continued dismissal of them. 

She’s got far more on her mind right now than a proverbial roll in the hay, and she wishes he could understand that. But judging by his growing frustration, the boy doesn’t have the faintest clue.

* * *

**_but now I know_ **

**_I’m not alone_ **

**_someone understands_ **

Champ perks up a little when Waverly asks him to take her back to Shorty’s after they’re finished, but it’s short-lived when they arrive and he realizes that she wants to try and solve her riddle rather than take him upstairs and _warm up_ after their morning out in the winter weather. He sulks around the bar, helping himself to free beer and pool while she tries to ignore the pouting as she unfolds the piece of paper and traces her finger over the words written in Curtis’s hand.

She tries to focus on the riddle in front of her, but her mind keeps drifting to flashes of red hair and dimples, and she catches herself wondering how things might be different if it was Nicole here with her right now instead of Champ.

Nicole, who eats her lunch in the break room at the station and always lights up whenever Waverly is able to come out and join her for a few minutes.

Nicole, who lets her ramble about some ancient scroll she just spent three days translating, but instead of trying to get her to shut up about it, she asks her questions and actually _listens_ to the answers.

Nicole, who is _fascinated_ by all of the languages Waverly speaks, and asks her to read things to her out loud when there’s no one else in the station and she’s bored at her desk because nothing else is going on.

Nicole, who made a special point to buy a book of master-level crossword puzzles one time when she was in the city on her day off, for no other reason than because she thought Waverly might like it.

Nicole, who brings her a fresh cup of coffee and a slice of cobbler from the diner on the nights that she’s burning the midnight oil in the Black Badge office, but never expects any sort of _payment_ in return.

If Nicole was here right now, she would be looking at Waverly with bright eyes, brimming with excitement about this little quest. She’d pull up a stool and pick Waverly’s brain about what it could mean and watch with her chin resting in her hands as Waverly paced back and forth, rambling and talking through everything in her head.

She stops herself right there. She doesn’t have time to be thinking about this right now. But it’s hard not to, knowing that there’s at least one person out there that sees her for who she really is. That doesn’t try to change her or shut her up. That _encourages_ her intellect and the things she’s passionate about. Someone that _understands_ her…

Waverly shakes her head with a sigh and stares at the mirror hanging behind the bar across from her.

_Wait… my beautiful mug…_

* * *

**_you used to be all that I had_ **

**_now you’re just not what I need_ **

Waverly continues to unravel Curtis’s clues one by one, and Champ continues to ignore her at the pool table – or worse, make fun of her ideas while she’s trying to piece them together. His tune changes, though, when she finds the secret compartment in the side of the piano, and now she’s the _smartest thing on two amazing legs._

That makes her grit her teeth, but she’s far too excited about the package she just uncovered to do anything about it at the moment. Champ is suddenly interested in what she’s been working on, now that he thinks there’s a possibility of money or treasure or some other kind of payout. He proclaims that his big dream has apparently always been to own a bar in South America and have Waverly work there.

She can’t even stop herself from rolling her eyes this time, but that soon fades when she pulls her actual prize out of the box. A skull is certainly not what she was expecting, but there’s a small part of her that’s not really surprised by anything anymore. She ignores Champ’s contemptuous muttering about Wynonna getting the Harley as she carefully pulls the note out from between its teeth.

Curtis names Waverly the Keeper of the Bones and implores her to protect the skull, confessing that she’s the only one he can trust. She’s flooded with warmth at the thought. He believes in her. He _always_ believed in her. Believed she was meant for bigger things, paid for her classes and research into languages and history, left her a legacy she’s the only one that can fulfill. 

Once again, she’s reminded of Nicole – of how Nicole brings out these same feelings in her – and for once, she doesn’t just try to shrug it off or sweep it away. Instead, she lets herself linger for a moment on why that could be. On what it could really mean.

Especially considering the fact that Champ is right behind her, rolling his eyes and scoffing at the fact that she’s waxing poetic about how she and Curtis used to drive Gus nuts with all of their history talk, just like he always does when Waverly starts to talk about anything that doesn’t directly involve him.

Quite frankly, she’s grown rather tired of it. This may be how things have always been between them, but she’s pretty sure it’s not what she needs anymore.

* * *

**_I’ve got to get over you, and I know_ **

**_then I can get back to me_ **

“I can’t think of a better gift.” Waverly beams from ear to ear, her chest welling with a rare pride. “The Keeper of the Bones.”

“You know…” Champ says, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face as his arms tighten around her waist and he pulls her in closer against his body. “You’ll always be the keeper of _my_ boner.”

Waverly stiffens in his arms, her hand falling away from the box that holds her newest treasure. All she wants to focus on is the skull her uncle had left her – her _legacy_ – but Champ’s one-track mind obviously has other ideas right now.

 _How did I get here?_ she thinks to herself with a weary sigh as she feels his hot breath against her neck. But as soon as the thought crosses her mind, she realizes she doesn’t really need to ask that question. It’s all she’s been able to think about for the past couple of months. Maybe it’s time she quits ignoring the answer.

“Huh?” Champ asks playfully, laughing at his own joke. “C’mon. Let’s shut that brain off for a little while,” he starts, pulling her away from the box and kissing up the side of her neck.

Something inside Waverly _snaps._ It’s the last straw, and she just can’t take this anymore. 

_“No,”_ she says firmly, shoving at his hands until she’s able to wriggle free of his grasp. His nostrils flare a little and he rolls his eyes again, but she doesn’t let it deter her this time. “I don’t… I don’t _want_ my brain shut off. Okay?”

The muscles in his jaw flex and he walks around her with an audible _huff_ to sit on the stool at the nearby table. The heels of his cowboy boots clacking against the wooden floor ring out like gunshots in the silence hanging between them, a firing squad finally laying to rest the remnants of a relationship she’s long outgrown. 

“I don’t _want_ to be a _barmaid_ in Buenos Aires.” Champ just rolls his eyes again, resting his chin in his hand, apparently thinking he’ll just wait out her rant as per usual, and then they’ll kiss and make up like they always do. But her hands are flying about, and now that she’s started, it seems _everything_ she’s been holding back is ready to come out. “And it turns out that a– a boner and a pickup aren’t the whole enchilada.”

That seems to catch him off guard a little, and he rubs his forehead uncomfortably, waiting for her to take it back or laugh or anything to indicate that she’s just hormonal or whatever and that she didn’t really mean it.

“No…” Waverly says quietly, trailing off as she loses herself for a bit. It seems to have caught her off guard a little, too. Her face goes slack momentarily as the wheels in her head keep turning.

And then something _clicks._

This is the turning point in her life. It’s time for her to decide what she really wants. What she really deserves. What really matters to her.

Her family. Her legacy. Her curse. Her _self._

But not _this._

Not anymore.

It’s time to stop letting herself be held back. To stop letting herself be made to feel stupid for the things she enjoys. To stop caring what everyone else is going to say. It’s time to get over Champ, and get back to what _she_ wants.

“We’re done.” 

She almost can’t believe the words actually came out of her mouth. But the way Champ drops his hand to the table with his mouth hanging open in disbelief tells her that they definitely did.

“Yeah. We’re done, Champ.” She can’t believe how strong she feels right now. Conviction flows through her veins, and she’s never been so sure of anything in her entire life. “And I’ve got work to do.”

Waverly can’t believe it took her this long to get here, but now that she has, she’s overcome with a kind of freedom that she didn’t know was possible. She walks away from him, blowing out a deep breath and shaking her head with a startled laugh.

She knows she has a lot of other things to figure out for herself – not the least of which involve a certain deputy with dimples that could melt a polar ice cap – but for now, she’s going to take her victories where she can. Because today, she has become something she’s never truly been before: _Waverly Earp._

Not _the town sweetheart._

Not _everybody’s favorite bartender._

Not _that crazy Earp bitch’s little sister._

Not _Champ Hardy’s girlfriend._

Today, she is _just_ Waverly Earp.

And that’s a pretty damn good place to start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone for reading. I am always up for questions and discussions.
> 
> You can find me on both Twitter and Tumblr: @iamthegaysmurf


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